Culver defends labor agreements for public projects

An executive order Gov. Chet Culver signed earlier this year is making its way into the gubernatorial campaign, as Republican challenger Terry Branstad and others critical of labor unions make the case that it will hurt Iowa business.

Chet Culver (Photo: Flickr Creative Commons /iowademocrats.org)

Executive Order 22 requires all state departments and agencies to consider using Project Labor Agreements (PLA) on large-scale construction projects over $25 million. Those agreements would define the terms and conditions of employment on a state-funded project, such as wages and dispute resolution.

A decision last month by the Iowa Board of Regents to use a PLA for an upcoming project at the University of Iowa has rekindled a fight over labor issues, starting with attacks by the Iowa chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). The group sent out a release that claimed PLAs are “blatantly discriminatory,” and accused the Board of Regents of partisanship and acting under direct pressure from Culver.

“This is blatant discrimination and the Culver cronies on the Board of Regents took this partisan action under direct pressure from Gov. Culver,” Greg Spenner, president and CEO of Iowa’s ABC chapter, said in the release. “Iowans deserve leaders who do not make decisions simply meant to reward political donors. In this case, Big Labor is the winner, at the expense of the majority of Iowa workers – - hard working, taxpaying citizens who have chosen not to join a union.”

Jim Flansburg, Culver’s communications director, refuted ABC’s claim, noting that workers do not have to be union members, nor do they have to belong to a union or pay union dues, which is explicitly stated in the executive order.

“The fact is that PLAs are good public policy,” Flansburg told The Iowa Independent in a phone interview. “We’re talking about tax dollars here and the goal is to ensure that projects are completed on time, with the highest quality and paying the workers a livable wage. If you delay a public project’s completion, it ends up costing more money and this is not being good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.”

The primary purpose of PLAs is to ensure smooth completion of projects by getting the participants — project manager, the contractors and workers — to agree to certain ground rules, thus expediting the project with minimal disruptions. Provisions within a PLA standardize and stabilize wages and benefits, starting and ending times for employees and requires workers to agree not to disrupt the project if labor disputes arise, but rather submit disputes to fast and binding arbitration so the project can move forward.

Regarding the ABC’s accusations of blatant discrimination and cronyism, Flansburg noted an Iowa Supreme Court 6-1 decision in 2002 that PLA’s are not discriminatory, nor do they promote favoritism. The Iowa Supreme Court examined this issue on the Iowa Events Center project in Des Moines and found that the PLA applied to all bidders and did not discriminate based on union or nonunion affiliation.

Moreover, Flansburg took issue with the ABC’s partisan finger pointing at the Board of Regents, which passed the agreement along party lines.

“To accuse members of the Board of Regents who support this sound approach to public policy of cronyism is as misguided as it is unfortunate,” Flansburg told the Press-Citizen. “It is disappointing that some have chosen to resort to personal attacks and have tried to politicize this issue rather than to recognize it for what it is: a step forward for Iowa.”

This is not the first time Culver’s executive order regarding PLAs has come under fire. Two days before Executive Order 22 was signed, Branstad’s campaign released a statement attacking the order, making similar cronyism claims as the ABC.

“This is a covert, back-door way to usurp the legislative process and give payback to those whose support Culver desperately needs: The labor unions,” Branstad’s campaign manager, Jeff Boeyink, said in the February release.

Moreover, Boeyink made the claim that Executive Order 22 will result in higher costs for projects, inevitably resulting in higher taxes for Iowa taxpayers. The Iowa Independent contacted Branstad’s campaign several times to help clarify and help substantiate these assertions but received no response.

Since Executive Order 22 is still in its infantile stage, there hasn’t been any in-depth cost analysis of whether PLA’s used for government projects will end up costing more in the long run. However, the nonpartisan think tank Iowa Policy Project analyzed the role of PLAs in public construction and released a report in October 2004. Using the 2002 Iowa Events Center PLA as a test case, the IPP concluded that a PLA would inevitably cost less.

“…The county’s [Polk] construction manager estimated that both with and without the PLA, the percentage of union workers on the project would be about 90 percent to 95 percent of the workforce. However, with the PLA, the 5 percent to 10 percent of the workforce that would be nonunion in either case would probably be somewhat better paid. Its overall conclusion, however, was that the gross dollar savings from using the PLA was going to be greater than that wage differential, and the PLA would produce a worthwhile positive net benefit.”

Two days after Culver signed the order, Branstad referenced PLAs at a town hall meeting in Greenfield to draw distinctions between himself and his Democratic rival. IowaPolitics.com reported that Branstad talked about his support for Iowa’s right-to-work law and said he opposes a prevailing wage.

“These things all send the wrong signal to potential business and industry,” Branstad said.

The Culver campaign responded to Branstad’s claims on Monday regarding PLAs.

“If Terry Branstad can’t understand the benefit to Project Labor Agreements then perhaps fellow Republicans like Ron Corbett and Brent Oleson can explain it to him,” Ali Glisson, communication director for the Culver/Judge campaign, told The Iowa Independent in an e-mail. “Throughout the course of the campaign, he’s made false or misleading attacks on Gov. Chet Culver without providing any background or citations for his accusations.”

Moreover, Glisson wanted to set the record straight on PLAs regarding the use of union and nonunion workers.

“The truth is that Project Labor Agreements don’t mean that the contract is always fulfilled by union workers,” she said. “Just look at the Iowa Events Center Project Labor Agreement. Bidding is open to all qualified bidders — both union and nonunion contractors. That was the same case regarding the Boston Harbor project, where, in the end, 102 of 257 subcontractors were nonunion.”

Branstad and labor have had a contentious relationship in the past. During his tenure as governor, Branstad was sued by the public employees union over a contract dispute. And earlier this year, while addressing the Iowa Association of Business and Industry’s annual convention, Branstad listed off the bills organized labor unions have been fighting in favor of for several years, then concluded, “All of those ideas are dead when I become governor.”